Kazak is one of the trickier names to explain. There is a large town called Kazak in the northwestern corner of Azerbaijan. But, outside of books on rugs, there is no group of people called Kazaks (there is a group of people in northern Central Asia called Kazakhs, but they have no connection to the Caucasus). Some people have suggested that the term is a corruption of Cossack, while others think it comes from the name of the town. In any case, Kazak rugs are made by Armenians, Azeri Turks, Georgians, and Kurds living in the area be- tween Tbilisi, Erivan, and the Ganja area. The city of Kazak is more or less is in the middle of this region, so it is a convenient marker on the map for these rugs.

Kazak rugs are usually made with wool dyed in bright, primary colors with red being the most common. They use large-scale, geometric motifs with strong angular lines. This sock uses the bright red common to the region and strips the characteristic angular lines to their most basic form.

(The gray socks in the third and fourth picture are Mood, another pattern in this book. Those pictures were taken for a knit along, and just included here to show off another view of the socks.)